Canadian court allows ‘hate crime’ charge against Christian activist

TORONTO, July 4, 2018 (LifeSiteNews) — Christian activist Bill Whatcott is out on bail and out of a job after turning himself in to Calgary police June 22 to face a criminal charge in Toronto of wilfully promoting hatred against “the gay community.”

Toronto Police Service issued a Canada-wide warrant for Whatcott in May for the indictable hate crime offence after a two-year investigation into complaints made against Whatcott in 2016.

In 2013, the Supreme Court deemed two of Whatcott’s flyers hate literature when it ruled on his appeal of a Saskatchewan human rights tribunal judgment against him.

However, Whatcott’s criminal charge is significantly more serious.

“If I get convicted of this, it’s going to be a very low bar of what anyone can say,” he told LifeSiteNews. “Because they’re going to use it, they’re going to use it as a precedent for what the next Christian can say.”

“Powerful homosexual activist machine”

Whatcott, 51, described his Calgary arrest and various afflictions — a bout of pink eye, leg inflammation, food deprivation, harrowing holding cell experiences — and flight to Toronto on his web portal Free North America. It’s also described in a lengthy article on MassResistance.

Notably, Whatcott was met in Toronto by Sergeant Henry Dyck of 51 Division who “sported homosexual pride shoulder stripes, a homosexual pride emblem on his chest, and a homosexual pride bracelet,” he wrote.

“I just quietly prayed for strength that I did not have as it was obvious I was facing a powerful homosexual activist machine that encompassed the police, courts and Ontario government,” noted Whatcott.

He was released June 25 after a weekend in custody on $5,000 bail with several conditions.

These include not contacting Toronto activist lawyer Douglas Elliott, as well as two plaintiffs, gay bar owner Christopher Hudspeth and former Liberal MPP and openly homosexual George Smitherman, who brought a $104 million class action lawsuit against Whatcott and fellow “zombies” a month after the 2016 Pride Parade.

Three of the civil plaintiffs are also the criminal complainants against Whatcott, reported Daily Xtra.

Crown counsel Epstein told the court the plaintiffs received death threats after criminal charges against Whatcott were made public, Xtra noted.

Whatcott is also banned from distributing the pamphlet he and fellow “zombies” handed out at the 2016 Pride Parade, entering Toronto’s “gay” district, being within 500 meters of any Pride. He’s also been forbidden to leave Canada, and ordered to surrender his passport to authorities.

Crown asks for ban on speaking on homosexuality

However, Justice Rebecca Rutherford of the Ontario Court of Justice stopped short of granting the Crown request to ban Whatcott from speaking and writing on the topic of homosexuality.

Even though he feared he could be in jail for months until his trial date, Whatcott refused to agree to this condition.

He told lawyer Daniel Santoro, who represented him at the bail hearing on behalf of his lawyer Charles Lugosi, that he hated jail.

“One hour ago I had a psychotic threatening to punch me in the head, I went 24 hours without food, three out of four days I slept on concrete,” Whatcott wrote in Free North America.

“I don’t want to be here, but accepting a total gag order and agreeing to surrender the entire public narrative of this trial and the homosexual lifestyle to the homosexual lobby is too high of a price to pay.”

Santoro told the court Whatcott “had to be presumed innocent until proven guilty and he argued very well that the speech restriction was overly restrictive and unfair,” Whatcott wrote, and Rutherford agreed.

Whatcott loses oilfield job

When Whatcott returned to Alberta, he found out he’d lost his job as a oilfield bus driver, MassResistance reported.

Moreover, GoFundMe shut down the fundraising page his wife Jadranka launched, and according to Whatcott, told her she was banned for life.

The couple, who have two children, now have a fundraiser on GoGetFunding.

Whatcott’s next court appearance is July 23 at College Park, but it’s expected a lawyer will appear on his behalf to set a date for further disclosures of evidence.

“I feel that I must have done something right,” Whatcott told LifeSiteNews.

“My little zombie same-sex package simply had Gospel and medical information. For it to get under their skin like that you that you actually hit a nerve.”

“We are going to go after everyone who helped him,” Elliott said when he launched the suit in August 2016. “Every person, every church, every non-profit organization, everyone who helped this wicked man promote his hatred is going to be held accountable.”

Justice Paul Perell ruled in March 2017 Elliott could not claim defamation of an entire group, such as the Pride Parade participants, or the “LGTBTQ2SI Community,” or a sub-class of Liberals, but only of individuals.

But he also issued an order that Whatcott must disclose the names his fellow half “gay zombies” as well as those of “unidentified financial backers” who funded the group’s expenses.